During the Clinton scandals of the 1990s, we heard a relentless refrain from the big media outlets – personal behavior and character do not really count in job performance. They beat the drum that Clinton’s all-too-evident personal failings did not affect his ability to do his job well. I call that nonsense.
I remember a young pastor I knew who was being touted as “the next Chuck Swindoll” – a great pastor, great preacher, with a growing church and unlimited potential for the future. All of that was true right up until he appeared on the evening news for all the wrong reasons. His public and promising ministry was completely undermined by a chink the armor of his character than allowed the enemy’s arrows to pierce him.
Character matters.
This week, we had another extremely public piece of evidence in this sad debate. Bobby Petrino was forced out as the coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks football program. It had nothing to do with his job performance. That cannot have been any better. He took a struggling program and moved them to the head of the class. Next season was supposed to be their best, with a lot of returning players. Petrino is an excellent football coach.
Then, poof, it all went away. He was in a motorcycle accident. He claimed he was by himself. Not so much. He was with a 25-year-old former volleyball player with whom he had been conducting an affair (Petrino is married with four children) for some time. His girlfriend had recently landed a cherry job within the football program and it was discovered that Petrino had used his influence in that hiring.
That is what cost him his job. Not adultery. Not lying. Not cheating. He lost his job because he used his influence to hire the young lady.
But that is what people need to remember. These things don’t happen in a vacuum. Character drives behavior. Petrino has never been known as a paragon of honesty and virtue. An ESPN article by Mark Schlabach details his history of playing free and loose with the truth.
- In 2003, which coaching Louisville, he met secretly with Auburn about replacing their coach, Tommy Tuberville. He denied it until the press produced records that proved the meeting took place. He then admitted he made a “mistake.”
- In 2007, as coach of the Atlanta Falcons, he assured his owner he wasn’t going anywhere, but would fulfill his contract. A couple of days later, he resigned immediately to become head coach at Arkansas. His word was not his bond.
From this article, it was generally known that Bobby Petrino was not a man who tied himself too tightly to the truth or to his word. This tendency evidently bore fruit in this illicit relationship, the lying to the school, the manipulation of her job search and the eventual disintegration of his professional standing.
It is not a secret that I am no big SEC fan, and I could be accused of piling on here. That is not my intent. I like poor ol’ Doug Hibbard a lot and I know that he is hurting. This is a sad tragedy and any Christian who gloated over something like this would be sinning against God.
But I would like to make one point.
People act in accordance with their character. That is why character matters most.
The idea that we can compartmentalize our character and do a good job professionally while our character is misshapen is fiction, a myth like the phoenix or unicorns. You character flaws are going to find their way into your behavior in every part of your life. A man who will cheat on his wife will cut corners in other areas as well. A cheater will cheat. A liar will lie. Our character shapes our actions.
If anyone other than Bobby Petrino can be assigned blame here, it might be the university administration who ignored his character flaws when it benefited them. That choice came back to bite them. Did they think that occupying an office in Fayetteville would suddenly transform him? Soul transformation only happens through Christ.
Observations:
- At some point, people are going to have to realize that character flaws cause significant behavioral issues that will come to evidence eventually. We cannot compartmentalize character.
- There is a fundamental problem here in the way churches hire pastors. The hardest thing to verify in the pulpit search committee is character. We hire on the basis of personality, of preaching ability, of physical presentation, or of charisma. I do not know how you verify character in the search process, but somehow, we need to find a way. I know well a situation in which the pastor candidate came with the highest recommendations from the most influential of Baptist leaders. He had everything – charisma, looks, pulpit style. He just had no character. He turned out to be morally unfaithful and financially dishonest. He nearly killed that church.
- Pastors and church leaders, never let your public ministry overwhelm your spiritual transformation. We need to remember that our most important task is not preaching a great sermon, leading the church, or keeping people happy. Our #1 duty is to love God and grow in him, becoming more like him every day. In my own ministry there have been significant times when I have worked much harder on my public ministry than on my inner man. After 30 years of ministry, you get to the point that you can maintain a public personna of holiness even if it is not really happening inside. Pastors, if you neglect the inner man, eventually he will show up in your public behavior.
- There is another lie that is often told in the world. “You are what you are and that is okay.” Nonsense. You are what you are, but every character quality that destroys our inner life and our outer behavior can be transformed by Christ so that we are conformed to the image of Christ. God doesn’t just change our behavior, he transforms us from the inside out so that we become different people – new in Christ. To deny that is to denigrate the gospel.
Okay, have your say.
I long ago gave up the fiction that I could completely govern comment streams. But I would love for this not to become a football-focused post (though some discussion of that is inevitable). I also would hope that it not be a discussion of Clinton or politics (again, that subject may come up).
I’d love to see discussions of:
1) The dangers of public ministry not undergirded by private spiritual transformation in Christ.
2) Pastor selection processes that can somehow discern character, not just talent.
3) Christ’s power to transform.
Naturally, I hate this has happened to Arkansas. I also, and probably more so, hate this for Mrs. Petrino and the four children and the extended family. In addition, the young woman involved is to be pitied along with her family. Finally, I feel some pathos for Bobby Petrino himself.
The snares of the Trapper are plentiful and inviting, but the end is sorrow, destruction and so often more deadly that the bite of a Yellow Cobra. The snares of the Trapper are there for all of us and Satan knows how, when and where to set them to his advantage.
I think Gal. 6:1-2 is applicable here. Yet, and at the same time, a fellow would just like to punch Ole Bobby in the mouth for getting in this mess and letting down a good bunch of boys who have worked hard to please him and have become a good football team in the last two years. Their only losses last year happened at the hands of the two best football teams in the world. Arkansas’ future was bright, but it will be again. I think they will come to Birmingham and get the UAB head coach. He will do well and take them to a championship.
As to the pastor and the pastor search committee issue; I think that is a two-way street. There have been many good men who were not bold or just did not know to ask questions of a search committee who have been lied to like dogs on an empty tree by search committee members.
If you are an honest man with integrity and a true sense of calling, do not be afraid to ask questions and demand truthful answers from search committees. Ask the history of the church. Ask to see the last five year’s budgets. Ask to see the Constitution and By-Laws of the church. Ask people in the community about the church. Ask former pastors and then don’t rat them for telling you the truth. Ask questions. Get answers.
BTW, if you are not an “honest man with integrity and a true sense of calling” what are you doing in the ministry of Christ in the first place? Get out. Do the Kingdom of God a favor. Buy yourself a “motorcycle” and ride on out of town.
It’s the same problem as when you are dating – you dress up nice and act on your best behavior. Then, when you marry (or hire a pastor) you find the real life person.
What you suggest is absolutely true. Honesty now is better than regret later.
The idea of a person being a man of his word has really taken a beating in the past fifty years. I have known a few, very few, people whose word was their bond. From my childhood, I remember my Grandfather striving to be such a person. His brother was cut from the same cloth. I remember him saying, “I fear no man, but I do fear God.” Then, for emphasis, he repeated that last phrase in a most solemn manner” “I do fear Him!”
The wisest man I ever met was also a man of his word. He did 10 years of research on his little group of Baptists, The United Baptists, who had Primitive like practices with an Arminian Theology. Then he wrote what he found in a pamphlet, “A Study of United Baptists,” which I cited twice in my thesis for the M.A. in American Social & Intellectual History. He also invited me to the meeting of his church, when they churched him for what he had written (the truth according to the facts as I did the same research and more). The moderator of the meeting that night stood up and said, “The association has sent down word: ‘Get rid of H______!” There was no discussion as I recall. The congregation simply proceeded to bring a motion, second, and then voted unanimously as I recall. That dear brother was a quiet, soft-spoken individual, one that truly feared God as far as I could determine. He knew more about Baptist History for the past two hundred years, primarily from the angle of the church and associational records along with the writings of the ministers and other leaders during that period. He came up with an instance of an event in the life of John Leland which I have never read or heard anywhere else. He even read some records by a homemade microfilm machine that in two nights almost put my eyes out. Quiet, determined, godly, earnest, persevering, thoughtful beyond words. He asked me one question which some seven years later utterly destroyed my eschatology when I happened to notice the question of the King of Nineveh and the fact that Jonah’s message was an unconditional prophecy stated for a purpose other than merely predicting the future. God’s change of us is really a change in us, the addition of a new life that begins a struggle with the old man, the old nature for dominance in the person and life, a walking civil war that lasts until death. The one thing the gentleman cited above left me with was a sense and desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, no matter what the price. Yes, I would say character counts, especially in the calling which we are about.
Not to hit too much football, but Doug isn’t the only Hog fan around here. I grew up in Arkansas and was even a member of the famous Razorback Marching Band (I marched with them in the first inaugural parade for the aforementioned Clinton) way back when. That is the only mention I will make of him though.
As a Razorback fan, I was apprehensive when they first hired Petrino for all of the reasons given above and more. Character isn’t trumped by success for me. People I know, who would know more about Petrino, have long said that Petrino may be a good coach but he wasn’t a good person. I enjoyed seeing the Razorbacks succeed on the field in the last couple of years and at the same time lamented watching our coach spout obvious four letter words across the field during the LSU loss this past season.
Should the U of A known better than to hire him in the first place? Probably. Maybe they thought he would turn a corner after being given a fresh start in a little out of the way hamlet known as Fayetteville. Isn’t that the kind of thinking people always rationalize when giving someone a second (or third or fourth) chance.
The main question you asked is the one of character. How do churches make sure that they have pastors that have character? Do the homework. Don’t just listen to sermons, get to know the man who is preaching them. Character references are key. So is previous behavior. Find out about the past track record. Petrino didn’t just become a man with a lack of trustworthy behavior overnight. He had a long history of violating trust. Pastors don’t fall off the wagon overnight either. There are usually indicators that precede the big fall from grace.
Dave,
I looked for an avenue to draw the discussion back to “ism”, but to no avail. ;^)
Mr. Petrino discovered an eternal truth the hard way … “Be sure your sin will find you out.” In his case, that exposure was very public and very costly. Character flaws by church leadership are usually not so evident when clothed in religious garb, but when revealed are extremely costly to the body of Christ and its witness in a local community. When the big guys fall, “I told you so” impacts ministries for years.
Regarding the pastor selection process, the best observers of a candidate’s character are folks in the congregation. Character is revealed where the rubber meets the road in the community you serve in and amongst the folks you minister to. Those who know you best are those watching you most closely. Character does indeed drive behavior and, sooner or later, chinks in the armor are obvious. References listed on a resume are not always the best folks to ask – those are folks pledged to say only nice things in mutual admiration which might be called upon later for their next job search. But ask “Mr. Smith” pew-sitter if his pastor loves him and he’ll give you an honest answer. If you ask enough of those folks, a picture will emerge. If you have an obedience problem, you have a love problem. It’s unfortunate that pastor search committees are restricted from making such inquiries in a candidate’s current church. Thus, you are left praying for discernment … and believe you me, you better be praying hard for that these days! Sheep clothing is flying off the shelf into the paws of wolves.
My heart breaks for all those impacted in Arkansas and beyond by this sad news. But, praise God for restoration after repentance … Christ does indeed have the power to transform lives … I hope Mr. Patrino discovers that path.
To get the joke off my mind: In about a decade, we’ll name an airport after Petrino.
Anyway–
The issue at hand is a tough one. If you take Coach Petrino as the example, there were plenty of warning signs that there would be trouble at some point. Yet there was too much excitement that we would “get a winner” so that we overlooked those issues. There wasn’t a need to “dig deeper” and explore character issues. It was there.
That’s one of the difficulties I see in too many pastor search situations. There are clear warning signs, even without talking to everyone (or random congregants), that get ignored because of some really great aspect of the candidate. He’s got either a great recommendation from an important person or he preaches a great sermon…
I’ve seen it happen so many times.
There have to be ways to improve the process, but the current process itself would improve if we would go into it with our eyes open and be honest about what we see.
The lack of discipleship in our churches has us not knowing that there is a difference between grace that brings forgiveness and overlooking patterns of sin that bring destruction.
Tough issue. I can;t say I have much experience on the evaluating character for jobs. Most of my experience has been as the guy on the other side of that fence. However, I did grow up watching my dad as a pastor learn how to discern character for the rest of his staff. On thing he mentioned that always grieved him was when a former church employer would give the candidate a glowing recommendation when they were well aware of some warning signs. Rather than bring those issues up when my father would call them, they wanted to try and “help the guy out” by giving him a five star review.
I realize this isn’t the only solution, but perhaps as current or future employers of pastors, we need to be willing to share our concerns as well as our highlights when we are called on as a reference for a former employee. It wouldn’t fix everything, but it would be helpful in breaking a destructive chain with that individual. I know my fathers church likely would not of gone through some of the pain and suffering it did if other pastors had been more honest in their recommendations.
In my experience, people (including me) are distressingly consistent. It is a rare person who will do a significantly different job in her/his present job than they did in the last one. (Assumes similar types of jobs.)
So the challenge is to find out what sort of “job” they did on their last job. If you talk with people at length, they will often tell you what they actually know rather than what they think you would like to hear or what they planned to say. But it may take a while and you have to stay on the subject. You should ask questions. “How does the person deal with conflict?” was a good one for me to ask. “How do they deal with reorganization?” might be another good one. “What did they do a good job on?” or “What did they do a bad job on?” are both good, open-ended questions. You have to keep the conversation going for a while. You might even ask the same question again. You must listen to the answers you get–write down any “bad news” because you often forget it.
A mention of a bad behavior or performance should get a “weighing” that is far larger than a similar statement of a good performance. Remember that we don’t like to say bad things about people, so when we do, we are not likely to talk at length on that subject.
Another technique is to ask an open-ended question and then not say anything when the person gets the question answered. Often they will talk on and you will find things that you really need to know. Give them plenty of time.
We have heard of numerous situations when “noted people of responsibility” in Baptist circles have given the “glowing recommendation” even though they “knew” that the person had a character issue. This topic has been the cause of numerous blog postings. We have to listen carefully to what people say (especially celebrities). We may be better served to find someone who is not so famous to talk with about a person. Find someone who worked with the person on a regular basis or on a difficult task.
But you will notice that in many of the comments up the page people said that the coach’s character was known. The hiring committee just ignored it. I suspect that most of the time we know what we may be getting and we decide that we can “fix it” or that it won’t matter. Usually, we can’t “fix it” and it does matter.
The ancient Greeks had a saying: “A man’s character is his fate.”
Excellent comments/suggetions, folks.
Nice read. I’m a Razorback fan as well and a fallen pastor. I blogged today about this and it’s linked here at sbcvoices: http://fallenpastor.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/the-sins-of-bobby-petrino/
There are a lot of hurt feelings in Razorback nation as well as shock. In my blog post, I had a revelation about my own fall. I’ve always said that the two careers that most compare to pastoring are coaching and politics.
I read that, Ray. Your articles and both illuminating and cautionary! Thanks for being transparent with your struggles.